Lufthansa, together with its leisure subsidiary Edelweiss Air, will provide 90 000 seats to Cape Town during the upcoming South African high season. For inbound tourism, this means an extra 45 000 visitors with foreign currency spending power, a boost for the Western Cape hospitality industry and economy.
This follows Lufthansa’s first seasonal flight between Munich and Cape Town on October 28. It operates five times a week until April 8, increasing to daily services over the peak Christmas holiday period from December 20 to January 10, when an A340-600, providing an extra 100 seats, will be used on the route to meet higher demand. Lufthansa last year discontinued a Frankfurt-Cape Town seasonal flight because of a night flight ban at Frankfurt, which caused scheduling problems.

Axel Simon, director Southern Africa for Lufthansa and SWISS International Air Lines, says the new Munich-Cape Town route is proving popular in both directions with advance bookings for the upcoming season promising high load factors. He says the airline would like to serve Cape Town year-round and is continuously monitoring the route’s year-round potential but has to balance demand versus costs. 
He says the Munich market to South Africa increased by 48% in the past five years to 96 470 passengers in 2011 from a catchment area of 25m potential passengers in southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, northern Italy and eastern Europe. The most common reasons for passengers choosing the route are 52% private and 48% business.
Meanwhile, Lufthansa’s daily year-round Johannesburg-Frankfurt flights are currently operating at 90% load factors. However, says Simon, even though inbound and outbound demand have improved, yields are under pressure due to an oversupply of flights from Europe and from Europe via the Middle East, putting downward pressure on fares.
He says Africa is one of the strongest growth markets for the Lufthansa Group. Destinations on the continent, served with partner airlines, have increased from 15 to 40 in the past decade, and now constitute about 15% of the group’s worldwide network.